Follow the Money

Abstract

After the 1975 fiscal crisis, New York City mayors experienced a highly constrained fiscal environment monitored by the state. This study examined expenditure policies of each postfiscal crisis mayor (Ed Koch, David Dinkins, and Rudolph Giuliani), analyzed the extent of mayoral choice each mayor exercised in this new environment, and asked four questions concerning ways they allocated their resources. Conclusions were (a) postfiscal crisis mayors could not exclusively control their external environments in terms of revenues and were heavily influenced and constrained by the national political scene; (b) notwithstanding external fiscal and political forces, all postfiscal crisis mayors strived to fulfill their own political agendas in the way they spent their dollars and often succeeded; (c) Mayor Dinkins found it difficult to sustain redistributive functions given lack of control over external factors; and (d) since the fiscal crisis, forces for economic development versus forces for redistribution have split the electorate.